The Defensive and Offensive Nature of Jihad

After the 9/11 events, which were perpetrated by radical Muslim extremists, the view of Islam as a religion of violence did not actually emerge, but re-emerged, or more accurately it was revived. More moderate Muslims had to counter this depiction of Islam by arguing that Islam is a religion of peace, and that Jihad is defensive and not offensive, relying on particular contexts in the Qur’an such as “We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”(Quran, 5:32) Or, “There is no compulsion in religion.” (Quran, 2:256) Yet such arguments are deemed apologetic and defeatist by other Muslims, prominent among them is Sayyed Qutb. However, in analyzing the Quran, one can find many verses that counter the arguments of both sides and contradict the verses used by each of them. This paper holds that Jihad is both offensive and defensive in nature. It first introduces and provides a definition of what Jihad stands for, then states and expands the argument of those who consider that Jihad is only defensive in nature, then follow it with counter-arguments from the other side, after that, it will evaluate the two stances based on historical context.

Jihad does not necessarily mean war, as there were other terms employed in the Qur’an that dealt with fighting, such as Qital and Harb. Firestone provides an interesting analysis of the Qur’anic verses that dealt with war. In examining the two words provided earlier, he states that “Qital is far more prevalent in the Qur’an as a reference to fighting occurring some sixty-seven times”. As for Harb, he states that “Harb, means simply war, whether holy or profane” (Firestone, 2006, p. 309). As for Jihad, the root of the word Jihad in Arabic dictionaries is j-h-d which means ‘exert’ or ‘strive’. Firestone states the following:

“The forms of the root j-h-d in their various Qur’anic contexts convey meanings that range from a great personal effort to generic religious piety, to engaging in or supplying the war effort on behalf of the new community of believers. Jihad, […] because of its basic notion of deep and total personal effort, it became operative term for warring on behalf of Islam and the Muslim Community” (Firestone, 2006, pp. 311-312).

This total effort can take a number of forms (Bakircioglu, 2010); 1) Jihad by heart, 2) Jihad by the tongue, 3) Jihad by hand and 4) Jihad by the sword. These forms imply that the concept of Jihad is a polemic -asserted against another. This other can be ones’ own self, an enemy, or, the Satan (Firestone, 2006, p. 309). There are plenty of verses in Qur’an where attributes Jihad to Jihad-ul nafs -striving against ones’ own self, such as “Or deemed ye that ye would enter paradise while yet Allah knoweth not those of you who really strive, nor knoweth those (of you) who are steadfast?” (Quran, 3:142). However, in regards to Jihad by the sword, Qur’an seems ambiguous in its attitude towards this aspect of Jihad (Bakircioglu, 2010, p. 424). This ambiguity can explain the rationale behind interpreting Jihad as either Defensive or offensive.

Those who argue in favor of defensive Jihad argue that Jihad by the sword was permitted only against those who fight against Muslims (Bakircioglu, 2010). They argue that the essence of Islam is peace and that Jihad is only permitted in defense and must be conducted under strict conditions. Furthermore, they state that only those ‘unbelievers’ (others) who persecute Muslims are the object of force (Bakircioglu, 2010). Relying heavily on verses that were revealed to Mohammad in Macca or early periods in Medina, such as “Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory;” (Quran, 22:39).

Those who hold the view that Jihad is offensive, argue that the duty of all Muslims is to spread the message of Islam, by force if necessary so as to establish justice and the Law of God and abolish the dominion of men as Sayyed Qutb advocates (Jackson, 2007, p. 409). Qutb, basically relied heavily on his interpretation of verse 9:29 which states “Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low” (Jackson, 2007, p. 413).

The two stances above are presented with emphasis on their reliance of selected verses from the Qur’an in their attempts to assert their positions. However, this selectivity doesn’t solve the ambiguity that surrounds the Qur’ans attitude towards Jihad. Therefore, in an attempt to evaluate these two stances the Qur’anic attitude towards Jihad historically, will be examined in the following.

Jahilliyah in English means ‘the age of ignorance’, in Islamic history it usually refers to the pre-Islamic desert Arabia. Jackson described the society of that place as a “primitive version of the Cold War ‘balance of power’” (Jackson, 2007, p. 396). Where people were living under the constant threat of war. Therefore, when the first Islamic community emerged in Mecca, they were very weak and they had to resort to non-violent manner (Bakircioglu, 2010, p. 425).  Therefore, fighting was irrational under such context, it would be a political suicide. During this period, Qur’anic revelations commanded the Muslims to remain quiet and resort to “Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the better way” (Quran, 16:125).

However, this attitude didn’t remain the same. With the change in the balance of power after the Muslim had migrated to Medina and established the first Islamic state, aggressive approaches started to take shape first with conditional/defensive warfare “against known enemies and with clear limits to the rules of engagement” (Firestone, 2006, p. 316). This can be seen in verses 39-40 of chapter 22 “Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory; Those who have been driven from their homes unjustly only because they said: Our Lord is Allah”, and also in 2:190 “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.” During this period, as Bakircioglu (2010) states, that as long as persecution of Muslims was taking place the use of sword was permitted.

Yet this did not seem to be temporary with the passage of time coupled with an increase in power of the Muslims. With the increase in their power, Muslims began adopting a more aggressive and militant character, fighting for defensive purposes only was no longer the case. Rather, it was permitted to kill opponents wherever they are found to stop ‘ungodly mischief’ and spread the word of God (Bakircioglu, 2010; Firestone, 2006). this was stated in verse 39 in chapter 8 “And fight them until there is no fitnah and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah. And if they cease - then indeed, Allah is Seeing of what they do.”

After having examined the historical contexts under which these verses were revealed, how can this contradiction between these verses be resolved? How did Muslims historically responded? What kind of Jihad is there nowadays?

First, in response to the first question, which the first Muslim scholars encountered, two concepts were developed; ‘Abrogation’ and ‘occasions of revelation’ (Firestone, 2006). According to the concept of abrogation was developed to resolve the issue of contradicting verses where each verse according to ‘occasions of revelation’ served a certain purpose during the lifetime of Mohammad. Therefore, wherever there’s a contradiction between verses, “the earlier verses must be considered to be revealed in accordance with the contingency of the moment, while the later revelations must be deemed normative and binding” (Bakircioglu, 2010, p. 430), therefore, the early verses that prohibited Muslims from going to war are not applicable but rather, the later verses that urged Muslims to spread the word of God are the verses meant to be followed in regards to Jihad. Bakircioglu (2010) in support of this argument cites Friedmann’s argument that had Mohammad been obliged to follow the earlier verses that prohibited fighting and the ‘no compulsion’ rule he wouldn’t have forced the Arab pagans to embrace Islam.

Secondly, regarding the second question, the period after the death of Mohammad saw a huge expansion. The dominant mentality was that there were two domains; Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harb, where Islamic rule was prevalent that territory belonged to Dar-ul-Islam, and where to disbelieve was predominant there was Dar-ul-Harb and Jihad was used to spread Islam into these lands. Bakircioglu quotes Khadduri as saying “The Muslims were under a legal obligation to reduce the latter to Muslim rule in order to achieve Islam’s ultimate objective, namely, the enforcement of God’s law over the entire world” (Bakircioglu, 2010, p. 431). Yet it should be noted that though Islamic rule was spread by force through conquests, this did not mean that all the people in the conquered lands were forced to embrace Islam, at least this was the case for Christians and Jews (Bakircioglu, 2010).

As for the third question, the concept of Jihad throughout of its history was shaped by the political realities in varying socio-political contexts (Bakircioglu, 2010). As for the world today, there are two stances as well. The first is one that is mostly held by most of the Muslim state authorities, which favored a third domain -Dar-ul-sulh where Muslims and non-Muslims have peace treaties between them. This such new domain was an outcome of political expediency to respond to the pressing political realities where “the obligation of military jihad could not be maintained actively against all external enemies who were much stronger than those faced during the rise of the Islamic faith” (Bakircioglu, 2010). However, There are radical extremists like Sayyed Qutb, who hold an exclusivist militant world-view, which is held by contemporary extreme ideological groups like Al-Qaeda, where they perceive the existing political system as ungodly and must be changed, even by force if necessary.

In conclusion, various verses in the Qur’an are associated with various historical situations this, in turn, explains the presumed contradiction between these verses in the Qur’an. However, to hold one stance – either that Jihad is defensive or offensive, is exclusivist and does not add up to the whole reality according to the Islamic scripture. Instead, according to the historical analysis, it is clear that Jihad is both defensive and offensive. The defensive character, in just war theory, is postulated reasonably, while the offensive character, in Islamic perspective, rests upon divine revelations that became to be the ones deemed as binding based on the concept of abrogation. However, after the death of Prophet Mohammad and throughout the various political structures, the rationale upon which Jihad was exercised relied heavily on the situation of the Muslim state on political, economic and social basis. Yet, the nuclear age, globalization, interdependence, and sovereignty provide a rationale to adopt defensive Jihad. Yet this still does not undermine the existence of deviant, malign groups, unhappy with the existing system and seek to change it and spread God’s law.

References

Bakircioglu, O. (2010). A Socio-Legal Analysis of the concept of JIHAD. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 59, 413-440.

Firestone, R. (2006). Jihad. In A. Rippin (Ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Quran. Oxford: 308-322.

Jackson, S. (2007). Jihad and the Modern World. In J. J. Donohue, & J. L. Esposito (Eds.), Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives (pp. 393-429). Oxford: Oxford University Press.